What is recorded here

You can still touch the tomb on Church Hill at the SE flank of Slieve Rushen because it was moved in 1992 and set near Ballyconnell. Inside its six-metre gallery, cremated and buried people lay beside beaker and food-vessel pots, while three more cist burials waited at the kerb. The stones do not sound proud; they sound displaced, carrying death and memory from a hill into a hotel garden.

Originally sited on Church Hill at the SE flank of Slieve Rushen (see CV010-005----), this tomb was excavated in 1992 in advance of quarrying operations and re-erected in the grounds of the Slieve Russell Hotel near Ballyconnell. It consists of a ruined gallery, some 6m long, aligned WSW-ENE, set in a low, round cairn, retained by a kerb. A tall stone at W, splits the entry to the gallery which seems to have been divided into a short portico and main chamber. There are buttress stones along both sides of the gallery. During the excavation both inhumed and cremated bone, in association with beaker and food-vessel pottery, were recovered from below the cairn and inside the gallery under a rough paving. Three cist burials were found at the inner edge of the kerb. (de Valera and Ó Nualláin 1972, 115-6, No. 14; Channing 1993, 4; O'Donovan 1995, 2, no. 7) See linked document with details from Ruaidhrí de Valera and Seán Ó Nualláin, Survey of the Megalithic Tombs of Ireland. Volume III. Counties Galway, Roscommon, Leitrim, Longford, Westmeath, Laoighis, Offaly, Kildare, Cavan. (Dublin: Stationery Office, 1972). Compiled by: Eamon Cody Date of upload: 14 May 2013

Wedge tomb, dating to the Late Neolithic or Early Bronze Age (c. 2500–1000 BCE). It is significant as a re-erected example of a megalithic tomb type commonly found in the west of Ireland, reflecting early communal burial practices and landscape use.

The monument record does not grant public access. Check the route and ask the landowner before entering private land.